


fumbling my fresh start

by grapehyasynth



Category: Schitt's Creek
Genre: A rocky start, AU, M/M, POV Patrick Brewer, Pre-Relationship, although it is VERY difficult to picture patrick in non-canonical clothing, and david cannot handle that which is fair, he is not very good at business but it's partially on purpose and partially bc of depression, patrick's going through some stuff, unfortunate experimentation with different clothing styles
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-24
Updated: 2020-08-24
Packaged: 2021-03-06 20:54:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,109
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26075236
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/grapehyasynth/pseuds/grapehyasynth
Summary: When Patrick throws over his life to start fresh in Schitt's Creek, he leans a bit too hard into starting fresh, trying to reinvent himself - but the New Patrick he's determined to become does things like forget business meetings, fail to submit paperwork, and otherwise generally not endear himself to one David Rose.
Relationships: Patrick Brewer/David Rose
Comments: 33
Kudos: 108





	fumbling my fresh start

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [If you say run, I'll run with you](https://archiveofourown.org/works/26008993) by [upbeat](https://archiveofourown.org/users/upbeat/pseuds/upbeat). 



> Inspired by this bit from upbeat’s recent elopement fic “if you say run, i’ll run with you”: “I went from being this guy who -- who planned out every little meticulous thing in his life to someone who had thrown away all those plans and just packed up whatever was left into a barely functioning car to travel to who knows where. And that was both freeing and absolutely terrifying. It was just like a knife-edge kind of moment right here that afternoon and I knew I had to make a choice”
> 
> Highly recommend the fic!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It is nothing like this fic you are about to read haha. 
> 
> Did I google the lyrics for "Reflection" from Mulan to try to come up with a title? Yes. But ultimately that was not the direction we went in. 
> 
> Thx to alldaydream and reymanova for being more supportive than should be allowed

The first morning Patrick wakes up in Ray Butani’s spare bedroom, it’s past 10AM and his cheek is plastered with dried, crusty drool and the three bags that contain his worldly possessions are spilled across the room. 

The wallpaper makes his head spin a little. He’s not hungover, except in the emotional and sugar-saturated senses, after a late night sharing iced cocoas with Ray. He should get up. He should hang up his dress shirts so they don’t wrinkle and he should shower the eight-hour car ride off his skin and he should start looking for a job. 

Then again, he should’ve stayed and married Rachel and talked to his parents and fixed things with his friends and started saving for his first kid’s college tuition. He’s a little past doing  _ should _ . 

_ Fuck it _ , he thinks, some final thing breaking inside him, and he rolls over, scrunches the pillow under his cheek, and determines to stay in bed until dinner. 

  
  
  
  


He’s lucky Ray was looking for a new business consultant. Well, he gets the sense that Ray hadn’t been looking so much had made the position up on the spot when Patrick mentioned he was in the market for a new job, but it’ll do. This new, untethered version of him can just acknowledge his good fortune and accept the position. 

His first thought when David Rose walks in, on Patrick’s third day on the job, is to wonder where he gets his clothes and if it would crimp his style for Patrick to start shopping there too. 

See, Patrick’s decided that this new, untethered, unleashed version of himself is also incompatible with his normal blue button-downs and braided belt and favorite jeans, a combo that he’d crafted during his first real adult job eight years ago. It’s time for a change. 

He just...doesn’t know what that looks like. This morning, he’d opted for a pair of khaki calf-length shorts and that shirt Matty had brought him from Bermuda one spring break. It doesn’t really fit, so he’s got it half-buttoned over a white tank-top, and it’s more casual than he’d typically choose for a first week on a job, but Ray seems pretty chill. 

“Um, hi, I think we have an appointment?” David Rose says from the doorway as Patrick finishes the pizza bagel he’d decided was appropriate breakfast for someone undergoing a major life change. 

“Oh, hey. You must be David Rose. Is it 10:30 already? Sorry, I don’t wear a watch.” He just stops himself from saying something  _ really  _ fucking stupid like  _ I’m on island time _ . 

David’s eyes narrow. “Mmkay, but there are, like, six clocks in here, three of which I heard cuckooing the half-hour as I walked in the door.” 

Patrick finds himself blushing despite himself. Embarrassment is another thing he wants to leave behind him, but it’s true; Ray has already told him about his annual trip to the Eastern Ontario Black Forest Cuckoo Clock Convention every April. 

“Well, anyway, what can I do for you, David?” he asks, easing past David back into the office portion of the ground floor. 

David hesitates before taking the chair opposite Patrick’s desk. “Um, I’m here to file my incorporation papers. I just leased the general store and I’d like to - I’m sorry, do you need a minute?” 

Patrick glances up from digging through the sea of unfiled papers on his desk. “No, no, go on, I’m listening, just trying to find the right form.” 

“Uh-huh. Um, any chance Ray is coming back soon, or-” 

Ignoring the quick flash of resentment this poorly-disguised slight provokes in his stomach, Patrick smiles at David. New Patrick doesn’t care what other people think of him. “Nope, Ray’s out for the day. Something about a barn door with his name on it.” 

David’s face twists in displeasure. “Okay. I don’t know what that means.” 

“Ah-ha!” Patrick flaps a paper triumphantly in the air. “Got it.”

“Congratulations,” David says drily. He’s kind of funny, unintentionally, Patrick thinks. “Um, what info do you need from me for the, uh, the incorporation...thingy?” 

Patrick looks down at the form. Name of the business, address, description of the business... “Honestly, man,” he confides, leaning across the desk towards David, “I don’t think you need me for this. Why don’t you just take the form to fill out and come back when you’re set? No need to double-team a defender who’s asleep on his feet, right?” 

“I don’t-” David shakes his head quickly. “I really hope that’s a sports thing, because - Isn’t this your job, though,  _ man _ ? To help me fill this out? Otherwise I could’ve printed this out for myself and saved us both this...delightful interaction.”

Patrick laughs. “Yeah, I guess that’s true. My motto’s just like...” He flails for a moment, because New Patrick definitely seems like a guy who has a motto, but he hasn’t actually come up with one yet. “Live and let be, you know? Take it easy. Why give ourselves more work?” 

David studies him for a long moment, seemingly unswayed by Patrick’s smile. At last he leans forward to pluck the paper from Patrick’s hand. “Great. Good - good for you. That sounds like a - hmm. I mean, I would  _ love _ to take it easy, if I weren’t - I’ll just go do this on my own, yeah. I think it’s - I think it’s better that way.” 

Patrick nods pleasantly and waves him on his way, and he chalks the residual discomfort up to the growing pains of becoming a new, liberated person. 

  
  
  
  
  
  


“David! Hey, David!” 

Patrick’s not entirely sure why he’s trying to get David’s attention from the other end of the bar at the Wobbly Elm. The three beers - whoops, four, he corrects himself, swinging his head to check the bottles in front of him - might be to blame. It’s probably weird to chat up a client on a Saturday night. Is that what he’s doing, hoping to chat David up? 

David certainly does not look thrilled as he says something to the woman he’d come in with and sidles over to Patrick, who’s gone for a bit more of a chill goth vibe with his outfit this time, maybe inspired by David’s own wardrobe. David blatantly eyeballs Patrick’s black jeans and sleeveless muscle T as he approaches. 

“Hello again,” David says coolly. 

“Patrick,” Patrick reminds him, pointing to his own chest. 

“Mhm.” David holds up a hand for the bartender’s attention. “Having a fun night, it looks like.” 

“Oh, yeah. ‘Bout to try to figure out where I can get some cocaine in this town.” 

David shoots him a sharp look. “I wouldn’t recommend that. For, like, six different reasons.” 

Patrick grins, his elbow slipping off the edge of the bar. “I was joking. I mean, I would, hypothetically, because I’m, you know.” He does kind of a slow nod, trying to indicate just how  _ chill _ he is. David doesn’t seem the type who’d be interested in Old Patrick, in any capacity. “Only hypothetically, though. I don’t have a death wish.” 

“That’s good.” David eyes the four beers as if he very much doubts that. 

Patrick studies David’s profile as he speaks to the bartender, ordering a gin and tonic and a dark and stormy, which is so effortlessly cool. Fuck, Patrick’s envious of his cool. 

He almost blurts out something desperate and pathetic, like  _ why don’t you like me _ , but that’s some Old Patrick shit. Old Patrick needed everyone to like him. 

“How’s the store coming along?” he asks instead. 

David swivels to look at him, one eyebrow raised. “You tell me. Ray said there should be an update on the license any day-?” 

“Oh.” Shit. “Uh, yeah. Maybe not quite...any day. I haven’t actually, um, had a chance to look at the paperwork you submitted.” A week ago, he doesn’t need to add, because obviously David knows that. 

David’s whole face contorts and he rears back, nearly spilling the drinks. “ _ What _ ? Patrick, I’m - I’m sourcing things from vendors and getting permits for my soft opening and - and - if I don’t get my license I will be so fucking in the red - and you haven’t even-” He breathes deeply through his nostrils and tosses back half of the gin and tonic. 

_ I’ve been busy _ , Patrick wants to protest, which is a fucking lie. Even with the business he gets from the Greater Elms, Ray’s - and by extension, Patrick’s - workload is never particularly daunting. 

“Hey man, it’s fine,” he placates, reaching for David’s arm, but David winces backwards. Patrick looks for anger on his face but he just looks scared and worried, and that’s somehow so much worse. “It’ll be fine. I’ll - I’ll do it first thing Monday.” 

David’s jaw clenches. “You fucking better.” 

He whirls away, somehow leaving a lingering scent of leather, which - Patrick blows across the lip of one of his empty bottles. David is just so fucking cool. 

  
  
  


The thing that breaks him - is it possible to break when he already feels like he’s been broken, and broken again, and broken again until he’s a pile of itty-bitty cracker crumbs of a human? - is the framed business license that shows up on his desk a few weeks later. 

Because he never submitted those papers. 

“Um, Ray,” he asks, suddenly feeling like he’s going to fucking cry in front of Ray and the nice family who’ve come in for a Canada Day photoshoot. “Did you help David Rose with his incorporation papers?” 

“Oh, yes,” Ray beams, like Patrick isn’t an actual dead weight on his business. “You weren’t here when he came back in with his papers. A few times, actually - you weren’t here a few times when he came back in. And his papers  _ were _ quite a mess, poor David, so many good thoughts but he just needed some help - a lot of help, really - so I just said I’d help him! You just seemed to have a lot going on.” 

He hasn’t had anything going on. He hasn’t talked to his parents or friends for two months. He spends an hour each morning trying to pick out a new outfit that says... hell, he doesn’t know what he wants it to say. He takes three-hour naps at the end of each work day, just managing to squeeze in dinner before bedtime. He thinks maybe the MLB season started a few weeks ago and he hasn’t watched a single game. 

That’s bullshit. He  _ knows _ the MLB season started a few weeks ago. He knows the rhythm of their annual schedule in his bones, can smell the start of the season in the air. Normally he’d be neck-deep in a friendly betting ring with his buddies from high school by now. Normally he’s the one to organize it. He wonders if they’ve gone on without him.

“I’m sorry you had to do that, Ray,” he murmurs, still looking at the license.  _ Rose Apothecary _ . It’s a beautiful name. Ray’s even had the license framed. David’s going to hate the frame, Patrick knows that somehow. 

“Oh, don’t worry about it, Patrick. Maybe for the next one we’ll work on it together.” 

Patrick glances at the clock - one of eight in the office portion of the house - and determines he has time to make one more outfit change and still make it to the general store during business hours. “Hey Ray, do you mind if I drop this license off for David in person?” 

  
  
  
  
  


David glances up as Patrick enters the store and blurts out, “Oh god!” 

Patrick cringes. “Wow, really made that bad of an impression on you, huh?” 

“No,” David says quickly and entirely unconvincingly. “It’s just - you look like you raided my friend Stevie’s closet.” 

Patrick glances down at the dark blue plaid shirt he’s tucked into his lightest pair of jeans. He’d been trying to emulate his old style a little bit, enough to make himself feel prepared for this conversation. “Oh. Is that a... good thing?” 

“Um...” David bites his lower lip, clearly fighting a smile. 

“Right,” Patrick chuckles, chagrined. He still likes David - still finds him interesting, and funny, and really fucking smart if his business ideas are anything to go by. He just really doesn’t like the weird energy between them. And it’s all his fault. “I, uh, I have your business license.” 

“Oh!” David takes the framed license from Patrick with reverence. “Wow. This is making it, um, very real. Which is not terrifying at all.” He pretends to gulp. “Please tell Ray thank you for me.” 

“Yeah, about that.” Patrick leans back against the large display table. “I’m really sorry I wasn’t there to help, David.” 

“Hmm.” David carefully sets the license on the counter behind him, avoiding Patrick’s gaze. “Which time, exactly?”

“Yeah.” Patrick ducks his head. “I deserve that. Each time. All the times. I know I’ve been pretty shitty at my job.” 

“Maybe you should apologize to Ray, then.” 

“I will. Very thoroughly. There will be months of green tea lattes and cakes frosted with coconut and so many true crime documentaries in my future.” He sighs. “But I also know that I owe you an apology. I hurt you, or at least made things more difficult for you, by being...” He shrugs. He’s still not sure exactly what he’s been doing since he got to Schitt’s Creek. Discovering himself? “I’d really like to make it up to you.” 

“You don’t have to do that-”

“No, I really do. And I’d like to. See,” and for the first time in months, Patrick feels a little genuine excitement creep into his voice. “There are these small business grants you can apply for, to help you on your way. I’d be happy to help you with the grant applications, and if the money came through-” He’s still not sure on this point. He’s sure that he wants it, wants to say it, but he doesn’t feel like it jives with this new version of himself. It’s fucking confusing. “If the money came through,” he goes on determinedly, as David watches him carefully, “I’d be interested in talking to you about coming on as a partner. You’d have the money to pay me, from the grants. And I’ve always wanted to help with a small business, and I’ve seen enough of your paperwork to know you’ve got something special here, David.” 

David’s chewing his lip and spinning a ring around his finger. “Patrick, that’s - that’s very generous, but I don’t know if-”

“Look, I know I haven’t been in top form,” Patrick pushes on, and David blinks in surprise at his forcefulness. “But I swear, the Patrick you’ve met isn’t - I’m not usually - you can Google me,” he finishes lamely, because he’s still having an identity crisis, apparently, and can’t even claim to know who he is or isn’t right now. “You can look at my track record-” 

“Maybe your nemesis will print out your previous academic achievements and drop them in my locker so that I’ll invite you to join the scholastic decathlon team to prevent you from beating her for the lead in the musical?” David suggests. 

“Um..?” Patrick tilts his head at David, who waves his hands. 

“That’s not a reference I actually expect you to get, sorry. I-” David exhales forcefully, looking over Patrick’s head. Patrick has the sinking feeling he knows where this is going. Clearly he should’ve stuck to being New Patrick. Clearly he should just go crawl into bed and stay there til winter. “Listen. Patrick. I - I respect whatever...journey you’re going on. Everyone’s entitled to their breakdowns and transformations - lord knows I’ve had my share. And I don’t know what you were like before - I barely know who you are now.” David looks really, genuinely sorry. “I just...after what I’ve experienced, after what my whole family has experienced, I can’t afford - either emotionally or financially, honestly - to put my trust and my business in the hands of someone whom I can’t rely on long-term. I can’t risk it. I’m sorry.” 

_ I can’t risk it _ . Patrick has never been a risk before. A liability. His dependability has always been taken for granted. He’s always thought it was an overrated trait, like being nice - it felt like all anyone ever saw of him was that he was nice and dependable. 

Now he wishes that’s all David would see of him. Here’s a business opportunity and a person, both of whom he finds interesting, both of whom he wants to help and to invest in, and he’s too much of a risk. 

“That’s okay,” he manages to get out, smiling bracingly at David. This bit New Patrick can handle. Unruffled by rejection. “I understand. Good luck, David.” 

“I really am sorry,” David says softly. “I know a thing or two about... feeling out of control.” 

Patrick looks down at his shoes, the only bit of his wardrobe he hasn’t been messing with lately, purely because he doesn’t have options. Out of control. Yeah, he supposes that’s right. He supposes out of control can look as bland and banal as sleeping too much and eating alone and fucking everything up. 

“See you around, David.” 

  
  
  
  
  


That afternoon, sitting at his desk at Ray’s, staring at the  _ 10:30AM, David Rose _ entry in his agenda book from two months ago, Patrick decides to make a plan. It’s the first plan he’ll have made since he plotted out how to propose to Rachel. 

Step one - 

“Hey Mom. I know, it’s been too long. I’m sorry, I’ve had some... stuff. That’s not - that’s not adequate, I know, but I hope I can start to explain soon. But I was, uh... I have a big pitch meeting coming up, and I was wondering if you’d help me prepare for it. Yeah, just like old times.” 

  
  
  
  


This time, two days later, when Patrick lets himself into the store, David’s jaw actually drops. 

“This is different,” he says carefully, taking in Patrick’s tight jeans, braided belt, and light blue button-down. “You look very...”  _ Nice,  _ Patrick hopes for.  _ Good. You _ . “Professional.” 

“Ah. You hate it, then.” 

“I didn’t say that,” David grins. “At least these fit you properly. And...blue’s a good color for you.” 

“Thank you.” Patrick tugs self-consciously on the collar of his shirt. “This is what I used to wear all the time. It’s kind of my uniform. I get the sense your clothes are the same for you?” 

David’s hands still on the cash register he’s trying to set up. “Are you comparing _my_ _clothes_ to _yours_?” 

“No,” Patrick laughs, because he likes offending David this way, lightly, teasingly, when it’s not his whole livelihood and dream at stake. “I’m saying our reasons are probably similar. It seems to me that you wear your clothes to ... I don’t know, steady yourself, and maybe convey something to others, in equal measure. That’s what these clothes are for me.” 

David nods, just once, quickly. “Hmm. And you haven’t been wearing them because...” 

The tips of Patrick’s ears burn. “You might have noticed I’ve been going through something?” 

“Oh! Is that what that was?” 

“Yeah,” Patrick grins apologetically. “But I’m actually here for a business meeting with the proprietor of this fine establishment-to-be. Do you know if he’s free to listen to a pitch?” 

“Um, I’ll have to check, he’s like, really busy,” David confides. They just smile at each other for a moment, and for the first time in a long time Patrick doesn’t regret getting out of bed. 

Eventually the moment’s stretched too long, though. “Uh, David, you know I meant you, right?” 

“Oh! Yes. Sorry. Yes, I will...entertain your pitch thing.” 

He sits behind the register as Patrick shakes out his hands, suddenly sweaty, and consults his notecards before launching into the speech he’s been practicing over Skype with his mom. He props up a couple of charts on the display table, showing David revenue projections based on ten different factors, options for scaling up or renovating or expanding depending on which different grants come through, annual timelines for resubmitting paperwork and evaluating progress, the six different spreadsheets Patrick’s already prepared to maintain to keep the store on track. 

“You know this is all moot if you don’t get the grant money, right?” David interrupts him at one point. 

“Oh, I’m gonna get the money,” Patrick assures him, and David’s answering jaw-drop sends a heady swoop of success through his gut. 

When he’s finished - a little breathless but honestly pretty puffed up on David’s clear admiration - he gestures nervously with his notecards. “So. That’s. Up to you now, I guess.” 

David nods slowly, studying the final diagram Patrick had propped up but obviously just to buy for time; David had informed him on the second diagram that he hates charts and graphs. “This is all  _ very _ impressive, Patrick,” he says warmly, and Patrick has to ask himself, not for the first time, whether he’s more interested in David or David’s store. It’s neck-and-neck in a  _ very _ hotly contested race at the moment. “I’m still just not sure-”

“There’s one more thing I want to come clean about. In the interest of us working together.” He tucks his notes in his pocket and decides his hands can stay there too. “At the risk of getting too personal with someone I’d like to go into business with... I made an appointment with a therapist.” 

Clearly, whatever David had been expecting, it isn’t this. “Oh - oh.” 

“Yeah. There are actually great healthcare benefits available for small businesses like Ray’s - that’s another thing I could help you with, if you hire me. But anyway.” It helps that David’s still smiling at him, that David seems to find him as ridiculous and worth listening to as he finds David. “I don’t think I’m full-on depressed. Which I imagine is what most full-on depressed people say, but I just - I know that I want to be someone you can depend on. Hell, I want to be someone  _ I _ can depend on. I’ve been trying out this other version of myself because I thought that’s what I wanted or needed. But I know who I am. I’m a guy who makes spreadsheets for fun and prefers a well-ironed button-down and calls his mom every week and gets way too into the Blue Jays’ chances for the pennant. And the problem in my past life wasn’t with that guy. It was that he started prioritizing everyone else to such a degree that he wasn’t much help to anyone, let alone himself.” It’s more than he meant to share; he hadn’t practiced this bit with his mom. “So. All this to say, I can’t guarantee I’m done changing, but I hope by working with a therapist I can both be confident in who I am and any changes that come and be able to handle these dips, or whatever they are, when they happen. Keep them within a manageable range. So that you can depend on me.” 

David’s silent for a long time, and when he finally looks up Patrick could swear he looks a little teary. “Well. That was - that was quite a pitch, Patrick.” David clears his throat. “Does this mean there won’t be any more major wardrobe overhauls?” 

“No,” Patrick laughs, and he sees David track the motion, sees David’s mouth mirror his grin. “No, I’m pretty sure I’m going to stick with this from now on. Maybe I’ll add some more color, play with some patterns, but - I like what I’ve got. I don’t think a full overhaul will be necessary.” 

“Not that I’m opposed to mixing things up, but.” David shrugs and stands. “You hold yourself differently in this.” Then he’s holding out his hand, and Patrick tracks the length of David’s forearm all the way up to his face, all the way to his future. “Let’s do it.” 

They shake on it, and David says something vague about drawing up paperwork before Patrick promises he will handle it - will  _ actually _ handle it this time - and then they grin at each other again and David starts to show him the layout of the store. 

And sure, one of the changes Patrick hasn’t figured out yet is that he very probably might be gay, and sure, David’s clearly not going to be interested in dating someone who wears straight-legged, mid-range denim, let alone someone who’s just had a third-life crisis (he’s lucky he didn’t buy the Camaro he saw at Bob’s Garage last week). But navigating that, flowing with his evolving notion of himself, feels much less daunting than pushing that notion to the side altogether. 


End file.
